The North Plainfield Fire Department consists of twenty-eight (28) career Firefighter/EMT members, eight (8) full-time Uniformed EMTs and a volunteer call force of 2 members. As with any other agency that depends on volunteer support, we continue to experience a fluctuation in the number of persons willing and capable of serving as volunteer firefighters. EMS coverage is also partially supplemented with approximately 14 part-time, per diem EMTs. The organizational chart below explains our departmental structure.

The Fire Chief, Deputy, Staff Fire Inspector and Administrative Assistant work weekday hours, while all other Firefighters and the civilian EMTs work 24 hour shifts.  All department members are listed below:

Training 

All members of the department are required to meet a minimum level of training standards annually. This includes topics such as Right to Know-Haz. Comm. Training, Blood borne pathogens, Hazardous Material refresher, SCBA refresher and many others.  In addition to those topics, which are required by law, all shifts also conduct company drills throughout the month. This works out to approximately 1 to 2 hours of training per tour of duty and includes topics such as ladders, hose, extinguishers, carbon monoxide emergencies, gas & electric emergencies, water rescue and many others.

Platoons also participate in the monthly callmen’s drill on the first Wednesday night of each month. More about this drill is discussed in the Callmen section.

Further, since most of the department’s members are also NJ certified emergency medical technicians, they are required to complete 48 hour’s worth of continuing education units over a three year period.

There are also about twelve NJ State certified fire inspectors and they too are mandated by law to take classes on a three year cycle. Those ceu classes are necessary to maintain their inspector’s license.

Lastly, there are many specialized classes that the department participates in regularly, either by ourselves or jointly with our mutual aid fire departments. For example, we have attended the Somerset County Emergency Services Training Center to participate in their new flashover fire simulator.  We have also sent a handful of our members to the FDIC – Fire Department Instructor’s Conference and the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

Besides the minimal requirements listed above, all Captains are required to obtain and maintain the following certifications:  Incident Management-Level 1 (I-200), NJ Fire Inspector, EMT and Fire Instructor.